Both the Phil Woods rear hub and Surly front rack failures are areas where there was subsequent design improvements that may have also addressed some of the issues I saw:
-- I used a 48-spoke Phil Woods rear hub as a way of getting "bombproof" wheels. These had four sets of pawls and a spring to let them spring back. The problem was that the pawls would stick open and then the hub would freely rotate.
- On two occasions, I had a bike shop pull the hub apart and clean/reapply grease with mixed results.
- In Hamilton, New Zealand that seemed to work for several days but then it failed again before Napier.
- When the a rear hub failed near Smithers BC in 2016, Phil Woods sent up a replacement hub under warranty. This hub had five sets of pawls which Phil Woods indicated was a design change that should also improve things.
- However, after that failure and subsequent failure of different hub on my mountain bike near Rawlins, WY I had a bike shop in Fort Collins take everything apart and it worked from there to San Diego. At that point, rather safe than sorry, I decided to switch to a different hub for rest of my trip.
- In addition to New Zealand, Rawlins and Smithers failures, I also had one in southern Thailand in 2007.

I have had only one instance of a front hub with cup and cone having an issue. That was on trip across Russia where it appears one of the front bearings disintegrated. Still rode with a wobble and few days later had a bike shop redo the hub with right number of bearings.

The Surly front rack failures were with brackets that looked like the bracket below on the left. The failures I had on both sides was on the very tip of the bracket where the bracket mounts on the front wheel. That metal broke on both my left and right brackets. The failure was undoubtedly helped by my having larger/heavier backroller panniers on the rack and cycling ~1500km of gravel road with some corrugation until eventually the repeated stresses broke the tip of metal. I was still able to jury rig things by sliding the bracket forward a bit more and having the nut/washer grab further back. After my trip, Surley sent me replacement brackets. These went straight across and didn't have the kink in them. I have continued to use the rack and haven't had a failure since.

I no longer have the same blackburn rack that came with my Trek 520. Eventually the metal fatigued and cracked. I replace the rack between tours.

Overall, I wouldn't hesitate to use and recommend the Surley rack and treat the failures as special circumstances and likely rare. I am more cautious with the hub failures. Probably OK for others, but for me I have intentionally tried other hubs instead for a better in the field maintenance and sense of reliability when I am more remote.